Chocolate Honey Cake

Chocolate Honey Cake

I've used chocolate transfer paper once or twice to embellish molded chocolates but I've never been confident enough to use it as a cake wrap. Intimidation held me back and I have never been a fan of throwing away money - specifically $7 for a single transfer sheet if I flubbed the job.

Maybe it was the recent success over poured fondant that has given me the confidence to try again. Maybe it was the simultaneous discovery of chocolate-honey cake and a cheerful honeycomb chocolate transfer. I don't know, but in the end the task was much easier than I'd made it out to be in my head.

As expected, my first-time wrap results are not perfect. Novice mistakes are apparent. The chocolate bloomed a little due to overheating, and the honeycomb pattern became skewed in places. Even so, I think if you are good at following directions, you will be at least as successful as I was with this endeavor; which, in my opinion, is not too shabby!

The honey glaze on the cake has a nice stickiness to it. Plenty enough to hold the chocolate wrap in place. I've made a short video of the glazing and transfer paper wrapping process in case you're wondering exactly how to execute the technique.

(Email subscribers may need to click over to the SB site to view the video.)

I will say this. The instructions that came with the transfer said to cut the paper to fit the side of the cake exactly. I had something more sculptural in mind, so I didn't follow that suggestion and my chocolate wrap towered high over the top of the cake. I can see how it would be much easier to fit the sheet to the cake's exact measurements, so novices may want to follow the manufacturer's rule on the first go around.

You can find an excellent resource for chocolate transfer sheets here.

One more thing, I made this cake in my food processor! If you prefer a stand mixer, you can find the instructions here.

Note: I made this
cake in a 6” pan so the chocolate transfer sheet would better fit around the
circumference of the cake. The extra
batter was baked into cupcakes. The
directions below are for the 6” cake.

Cake:

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 sticks soft butter

1/2 cup honey

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
powder

4 oz. chocolate, broken into pieces (I used Valhrona milk
chocolate)

1 cup very hot water

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Grease a 6” spring-form pan with
shortening and line bottom with parchment paper circle. Grease parchment.

Melt 4oz. of chocolate in the
microwave at 30 second intervals until smooth.
Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor
fitted with steel blade add sugar, butter, honey, eggs, flour, baking soda and cocoa. Process in a few short bursts until just
combined.

Add melted chocolate and process
again briefly.

With the processor running, pour
in the hot water. Process until
smooth. Batter will be thin.

Fill the spring-form pan 2/3 full
and place into the oven. Bake for 1 hour to 1hour 15minutes. (Remaining batter can be used for cupcakes.) When done, the cake will spring back when
pressed in the center and a toothpick tester should come out clean. Let cool completely in the spring-form pan.

Glaze:

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup honey

6 oz. Semisweet
chocolate chips

3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

In a small saucepan, bring water
and honey to a boil.

Remove from heat and add chocolate
chips. Whisk until well combined.

Add confectioners’ sugar and whisk
again until smooth.

Run a knife between the cake and spring-form
pan to loosen it, then unclip the pan and remove the ring to make sure it
removes cleanly. Pick up cake and
remove the parchment circle, then place the cake back on the spring-form
base. Put the spring-form ring back
around the cake, but don’t clip it tight.

Place cake in cake pan on a large length
of wax paper.

Pour glaze over cake inside pan,
letting the glaze run down the sides of the cake.

Let stand for 10 minutes, and then
remove the cake ring. The glaze will
flow around the sides of the cake.

Using a spatula, transfer the cake
to a serving platter lined with strips of wax paper.

Chocolate transfer sheet:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 10x16 chocolate transfer sheet, honeycomb pattern

Using an X-acto knife or pair of
scissors, carefully cut transfer paper into two long pieces (two 5x16
pieces).

Measure cake and trim transfer paper
to fit sides of cake exactly (or don’t – if you like my presentation). You will use one strip and part of the other
strip. These will be pieced together
upon application.

Very gently – melt chocolate. I rushed this process in the microwave, and
the chocolate bloomed a little, so do this in a double boiler.

Examine the transfer paper to make
sure you are applying the chocolate to the correct side. You should notice the correct side is less
shiny and you can feel the design if you lightly touch it.

Using an off-set spatula, thinly
spread chocolate over the transfer pieces.
Let stand until chocolate loses
its gloss but is still malleable. This takes 5-10 minutes, depending on the humidity
in your house.

Wrap cake with transfer
sheet. The large piece will go most of
the way around the cake. Place the
smaller piece side by side (no overlapping!) in the gap the larger sheet did
not cover.

If you are using the same
technique I did, you’ll need skewers or toothpicks to hold the transfer sheet upright above
the cake’s surface. Place them around
the inside edge of the cake to hold the transfer paper in place.

Wow, Heather, you do such glorious work. I just said to myself again, "Man, this woman should have a show on Food Network or at least a book." Then I saw your tab, giving the latest on your book, but saw you are still working on it. You do such beautiful work, you revel in it and it shows. PLUS, your photographs are to die for! You are everything rolled into one. Plus you are pretty and you have cute dogs too. Hey, this is turning into a Heather/Sprinkle Bakes "Love Fest!" LOL! OK, I'll admit it... this is your Mother. ONLY KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL! I'm just the biggest fan. Seriously though, every time I come on this blog (I subscribe to your email for posts too, so I get them in my Inbox and see what you do), I see such marvelous creations and photos. I wish you all the luck in the world because you truly are the epitome of someone who loves their work. You are blessed in that respect! And we are all blessed by seeing the fruits of your labour.Best,Gloria

That looks great ! I just made an instructional chocolate decorating DVD on the use of transfer sheets http://www.thechocolateaddict.com/ they are so fun and easy to use. I love how you crumbled the edges ;)

"The Sting of a Bee" music playing in the background! Unreal! I know you said the honeycomb should fit the cake exactly but Heather, that is so great about your creations...you are an artist! You make beauty from a creation as it happens. Would it be great to have these video inserts on the pages of your book?! Perhaps in an e-book... it would be so fun.

Heather, My husband and I watched the video and thoroughly enjoyed it! Perfect music:) He loves honey and has a quite a variety. I know he would LOVE this cake! I love the little bee:) You are so creative, Heather! I love the rustic, yet fancy look to this cake. XO, Sue

I came over from foodgawker. I rarely click through to recipes that I don't intend to attempt on my own (like this one, which is way out of my league), but I had to come tell you that this is beautiful and impressive!

Heather.. I'm dying.. really do you lay in bed at night and think.. and think.. I have to say this is one of my favorite cakes. I'm a bee hive junkie and this just "takes the cake" amazing.. I pinterested {is that a word now? ) on my ever growing thedragonflyoig page under just-bees ..bowing at you now as I leave to find your video... waving !! Jules

Oh Heather, that is one gorgeous cake. You've just reminded me that I have a chocolate transfer sheet sitting in my cupboards that I have yet to use - not sure I could ever do what you've done here though!

Wow! When I go to your link and I'm waiting for the page to load, I get a little thrill of anticipation to see what's coming up on the screen! Definitely not disappointed. I bow to you master creator!!

Your video was just the best Heather! I had never even seen or heard of transfer paper and it was so interesting to see this. Plus, I always enjoy your artful creations and putting it to music entitled "the sting of the bee" had me smiling! That cake is exquisite! xo ~Lili

I had some extra honey from my early Spring harvest and made this last night in 6 small spring pans. LOVE THIS CAKE! Super moist, quick, simple and has a wonderful taste that everyone in my family raved about. I did't use the fancy transfer as it's a pretty cake with just the glaze and some almonds but certainly will give it a try on the next batch I make. Thanks so much for posting. It's will be my new fall honey harvest cake at the bee meetings!

I too have wanted to try the chocolate transfer sheets to wrap a cake but have put it off. Love the rustic look you ended up with, that works with the honeycomb! I guess I will just have to bite the bullet too. This was inspiring.

I've seen those honeycomb transfers! So cute. I didn't know about chocolate with honey until I tried a fancy honey bonbon recently. So rich but so good! And I think the bloom actually gives the chocolate a nice wood-y character.

I have made this cake twice now. The first time I just made the cake and the glaze for my brother, he loved it (and my family too) but the glaze went everywhere. The next time I doubled it for my brother-in-law's 40th birthday and I put a chocolate buttercream on it so it would travel easier. I made it on Thursday and then traveled 7 hours with it up the North Island of New Zealand in my chilly bin. We had it on Saturday and it still looked perfect and tasted great. It managed to give 50 peeople a small piece each!! Thank you for your wonderful blog.

I made this cake today (minus the transfer paper step) and it was soooo delicious and soft and velvety! At first we were nervous since the batter was SO thin, but it was magical to bite into the cake. And I don't even bake usually :) Thanks!